In America we seem to have a hard time dealing with the concept of evil. We have two conflicting, though equally erroneous, ideas of evil. The first is the cackling super villain, the man who is doing evil for the sake of evil, cheerily destroying and killing just for the sheer joy of evil. Most often this description is applied to politicians, big business and others with whom one has a political disagreement. The left sees Cheney and Rove in this way, the right sees Obama and Alinsky in this light. The second view is the pop psych view of evil, the diseased or incompetent individual. Most often this takes the form of childhood trauma or abuse leading to an individual who is mentally unsound and commits evil acts though he "can't help it". Sometimes it deviates slightly and postulates a stupid individual who does evil either through sheer incompetence, or, combined with the other type of evil, through the bad advice of evil compatriots. This view tends to be more common on the left, where tales of poverty, abuse, and so on, are used to excuse most criminals. They also seem to often cast Bush in the role of dolt, sometimes simply incompetent and thus dangerous, sometimes a dupe to Cheney or Rove, who fill the roles of evil genius.

The truth is, evil is real, but it is rarely the result of either mental disability or intentional evil. Certainly there are rare individuals who do evil simply for the sake of evil. And there are those who are traumatized to the point of psychosis, though probably a lot fewer than pop psychology imagines. But the truth is, most evil in the world is done by those who think they are doing the right thing, or at least the necessary thing. Most people do not want to think they are doing wrong, and most people don't even want to do wrong. So in most people's world view, they are doing what they must, or even should. It is only when viewed in a larger context that the evil becomes obvious.

Now, at this point, I am sure many are going to point to criminals, and ask me if they know they are doing wrong. And yes, they know that society says what they are doing is wrong. Some may even admit they are doing something questionable. But they also have a "reason". Every criminal I have ever seen¹ has a reason that his crime was either justified, or was at least his only choice. He may admit stealing is bad, and he knew he shouldn't have done it, but there was some necessity which made it his only option. And most go farther.  Those who regularly commit crime tend to develop elaborate rationalizations for it. From the mafia and gangs which create the myth of being "soldiers", to lowly thugs who think they are justified in mugging because society gave them a raw deal, everyone likes to think they are doing what is right or at least justified. Even the most debased individual does not want to say he is doing the wrong thing.

However, what I want to discuss here is not the small scale evil of criminals and thugs. Though the same principles apply to their more tawdry small-scale evils, I want to focus on the grandiose evils of the political sphere. In that realm, the role of philosophy in evil becomes even more apparent, as does the fact that most evil is committed by those who think they are doing good.

I an a post earlier, I mentioned the Nazis and the philosophy of nationalism that was so common in that day, in both Europe and America. The philosophy itself was very simple, and was accepted by many people, some we would now consider evil, some we would now consider good. At its heart the philosophy was simple, that a given nationality, meaning a people with one language, culture, and, usually, genetic background, will benefit from associating with like individuals, and the inclusion of dissimilar individuals will cause problems. In some ways it is valid, as a common culture does have benefits², but it is wrong in linking this culture to language or accident of birth.

In any case, this philosophy was hardly limited to Germany, nor was the German manifestation before the war particularly different from that in other nations. The immigration laws instituted in the US in 1914, for example, included national quotas for nationalist reasons, to limit the number of immigrants from "alien" southern and eastern Europe, and increase the number of immigrants from northern and western Europe. Likewise, most European nations were reluctant, or outright refused, to accept immigrant Jews from Germany, which was one of the many reasons it was so difficult for many emigres to escape form Nazi Germany and Austria³.

Now, the violent outbursts and government sanctioned violence in Germany was unusual, granted, but only because Germany was the first nation to allow an explicitly nationalist agenda to thoroughly dominate its politics. Other nations with longer legacies of popular government had too many traces of enlightenment thinking to so fully adopt the new philosophy of nationalism, and so the ideas never got the foothold they did in Germany. But if you think about it, all the evil Germany caused was nothing but the logical outcome fo honestly taking nationalism to its logical conclusions.

The basic tenet of nationalism is nothing more than the belief that nationalities enjoy being with their own, and suffer when forced to associate with aliens. Logically, based on this philosophy, the ideal society would be one which was made up of a single nationality, unified in culture, religion, language and genetics. In cases where that is not possible, the next best goal would be either a nation made up of a single nationality, containing within it some small, closed enclaves of minorities, or, if there is no clear majority nationality, then some sort of ethnic canton system. The worst possible solution would be a "melting pot" made up of many nationalities, all intermingled.

However, nationalism does not just stop at the simple assertion of a national identity. Because, if there is such a thing as a national character, there are also national traits. If we can say that each nationality can be clearly identified, then there must be traits specific to each nationality. And from that, one must also assume that there are some nationalities which have traits we would call beneficial, and some which we would call harmful. Likewise, with each race having specific traits, there exists the possibility that some nationalities exist which are akin to diseases, nationalities which don't just have harmful traits, but have traits so harmful that introducing them into another culture places the other culture's survival at risk.

Even if we do not accept the idea of "diseased" nationalities, we must face the problem of national survival. As the amount of space is limited, and some locales are more desirable than others, and if nationalities cannot coexist peacefully, at least not without doing themselves serious harm, then we must face that the natural state of the world is the war of nationality against nationality.Each nationality can enlarge its numbers only at the expense of a decline in its rivals.

And so we can see the birth of all the horrors of Nazi Germany. Seeing no goal higher than the strengthening and expansion of the German nationality, the Nazis naturally sought first to remove from the German lands all members of non-Germanic races. Many saw this as beneficial not only to Germans but to other races, as they too would suffer form being an ethnic enclave inside a unified German group. In the minds of many, Jews were as harmed by being surrounded by Germans as Germans were harmed by having Jews in their midst. And so the philosophy of nationalism logically leads to the attempts at forced emigration for the Jews.

More than that, once war cut off routes for expulsion,t eh question arose how to continue purifying the German race. Those who held to a less extreme nationalism, who did not see the Jews as an inherently harmful "diseased" race, thought at first of establishing a Jewish canton somewhere in the Government General of Poland, an enclosed area where the Jews would exist as an isolated group not interfering with a mono-racial Germany. It was an idea which led, pretty directly, to the formation of the many ghettos throughout Poland.

But even that did not satisfy ardent nationalists. Those who saw the Jews as "diseased" clearly did not need other motivation. But the war provided an easy excuse for those who were not so extreme. Facing shortages from the war, it made no sense to risk the German race by using scarce resources to maintain these Jewish enclaves. And so, from nationalism, was born the final solution. First, efforts to use Jews for slave labor and then, outright extermination, the destruction of Jews without anything more than a token effort at extracting labor from them.

Looking at it in this compressed form, it still seems insane, an extreme reaction. But at the time, coming step by step, and all being justified by the dominant philosophy of nationalism, it doubtless made sense. The same way that the greatest excesses of the Soviet Union seemed to make perfect sense as extensions of the philosophy of communism. Or even as Pol Pot's marches and exterminations made sense as an outcome of the local version of communism. Looking at these events form the outside, it is easy to say they are evil, nonsensical, and so one. But from the inside, coming about gradually, often they do not seems so obviously evil.

And that was my point when starting this essay. The problem we face is not evil per se, not evil being committed by those who espouse evil for the sake of evil. What we need to oppose are those philosophies that lead men to commit evil, philosophies that open the door for atrocities.

And that is why I so strongly emphasize any violation of individual rights. Some may think me extreme when I argue against regulation of medical licensing or public ownership of roadways, but in reality the point is not so much the specific as the philosophy behind it. Once we give the government a power we deny citizens, we set the stage to expand that power. And once the power expands, it can be used to enforce the philosophical beliefs of one group or another. And, as I showed above, philosophies often include conclusions no one anticipates, and no one likes.

The only real protection against such evil is the simple principle that we should never allow the government to violate individual rights. The government exists solely as the deputy of individuals, the enforcers of their rights to protect themselves, and as an agreed arbiter in disputes between individuals. Otherwise, we grant to the government the power to expand its reach, to revoke all rights of every citizens, and eventually to commit these atrocities.

And, worst of all, as I said at the beginning, we don't even have to embrace any evils ourselves to end up there. As I said, no one commits evil as evil. Evil is always justified by good causes. And many continue to believe in those causes even as the evil becomes apparent. So if we grant the government too much leeway, and then vote in some do-gooder, we still can end up with thoroughly evil outcomes. We cannot trust in our selection of "good leaders" to protect us, as the good often turns evil swiftly and without warning.

The only sure protection is to keep individual rights inviolate, and make sure that no one would be willing for them to ever be treated differently. So long as everyone is whole hearted in their dedication to individual rights, the government cannot commit these evil acts. Only when we start giving the government power over individuals that ti should not have, only then do we run the risk of our dream policies turning into nightmares.

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1. Before anyone makes a snide comment on how many criminals I have known, recall I worked two years in social services, and so met more than my share of petty criminals. In addition, having spent quite  awhile associating with unemployed art students, my first hand knowledge of petty thieves and the justifications they can develop is pretty extensive. So in this case, yes, my first hand knowledge is great enough to offer an informed opinion.

2. I have argued that a common culture brings many benefits of predictability, but there are two problems with the nationalist approach. First, the government should not concern itself with enforcing a culture. Second, the idea that culture is tied to language or race is absurd. Culture is learned, and can exist independent of language, as the spread of American pop culture to every corner of the globe attests. So, while common culture may be beneficial, it is not something the state should be involved in forming, and it is in no way tied to a race or nation.

3.  Jews with money had a little easier time, but even in their case, many were kept out of other nations thanks to nationalist opposition to Jewish immigrants. Britain, and to a lesser degree the US, provided a refuge for a time, but even those nations started to curtail immigration after a time.